John McPremium
join:2011-08-16
Monkton, VT | Speeds depend on where you are. We had no DSL service in our area until recently. Cable is still not an option for us. Fairpoint finally ran fiber optic part of the way out to us, and then run DSL from there out to use. We had the option of 3MB or 7 MB download speeds. I started at 3MB, and got exactly that on various speed checks. Bumped it up to 7 after a couple of weeks, ad still get about 3. (We'll bump it back down if they can't improve on that... no sense paying for it if I'm not getting it.) Our friends who live right near where the fiber optic ends had the option of 15 MB download speed.
Our other option was satellite internet. We had Wildblue, which beats dialup significantly. We had their lowest package which was just 0.5 MB downloads for $50/month. their fastest package was 1.5 MB for $80. It's still frustrating, because it seems much slower when browsing (latency from bouncing signals off satellite, I guess). Given the cost and the speeds, the only reason to consider satellite is if you have no other option beyond dial up. |
| reply to suw
I've had Fairpoint DSL up here in the islands for the past few years. Our options were (are) 1.5 and 3Mbps. It was fine for the first couple of the years, but the last year has been aweful - either massively reduced speeds between 8pm and midnight on weekdays (like 200kpbs), or constant dropped connections. I finally got so sick of the stupid 'we can send a guy out' answer that I gave up. Cable finally came through last year, so I had my house connected last week. So far so good. 15-27 Mbps down, 3.5-4Mbps up as measured by Speakeasy. It's a long way from the 2.8Mbps/768Kbps I would get on a good day from DSL. If it's your only option, go for it (because it's still better than dialup and satellite)...but the service sucks. |
